Beschreibung:
Soil not only represents the vital skin of the Earth, necessary for continental life, but it is also the principal primary source of the clay and accompanying minerals in the sedimentary lithosphere. The predominating portion of suspended matter in rivers is a derivative of the finest grain-size fraction of the uppermost soil horizon in the respective river basins where soils are broadly developed. Clay minerals from chlori-tes through vermiculites, smectites, illites to kaolinites, including their mixed-layer structures, represent a series of increasing chemical maturity, expressed by Al%(Na+Mg+Ca)% and of increasing weathering intensity. Parent rocks — soils — ► rivers — ► detrital portion, sediments.